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Robert Kuttner

Robert Kuttner is co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect, as well as a distinguished senior fellow of the think tank Demos. He was a longtime columnist for Business Week and continues to write columns in The Boston Globe. He is the author of Obama's Challenge and other books.

Recent Articles

Prescription for Failure

Robert KuttnerDec 04, 2001

Prescription drug benefits are shaping up as one of the defining issues in this fall's campaign. Drugs are now the fastest-growing component of medical care. Elderly people spend more on drugs than on doctor bills. HMOs are squeezing other kinds of care because of their own rising drug costs.


There are really two big questions here: Should more Americans get more drug coverage, and should government play a direct role in limiting drug prices?


The reasonable answer to both questions is a resounding yes.


News Pollution

Robert KuttnerDec 03, 2001

Readers of the Sunday New York Times Magazine were treated on April 1
to an extensive advertising supplement on allergies and asthma. The supplement
ran from page 30 to page 42, with regular Times Magazine page
numbering. The ostensible news copy was prepared by an outside agency; the
section carried the disclaimer, in small type, that it was not based on reporting
or editing by the Times.

Comment: Budget with Care

Robert KuttnerDec 03, 2001

I recently proposed that instead of getting rid of what the Bush people call the death tax we abolish the "pre-death tax." This term, coined by my friend Michael Lipsky, refers to the Medicaid provision that requires people to spend down their personal assets on nursing-home care before Medicaid starts paying the cost. Medicaid is a means-tested program for poor people. The premise of current policy is that middle-class people who need long-term care must first impoverish themselves and then qualify for Medicaid as medical paupers.


Vigilance Needed as Cold War II Grips U.S.

Robert KuttnerDec 03, 2001

Recently, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman christened the war aganst terrorism
World War III. But that's too apocalyptic. A better name would be Cold War II.

The first Cold War was ''a prolonged twilight struggle,'' in George Kennan's famous phrase. It was
punctuated with periods of hot war, in Korea and in Vietnam. But for the most part it lived up to its
name - an uneasy armed peace with jittery alerts, cloak and dagger operations, and proxy skirmishes
between client states.

Bush's Troubling Medicare Plan

Robert KuttnerDec 03, 2001


George W. Bush has at last revealed the outline of his Medicare/drug benefit plan. One is reminded of Anatole France's famous line that "the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges."

Governor Bush's plan allows the poor as well as the rich to choose to pay high premiums for prescription drug coverage (or to choose instead, say, to eat). What Bush's plan does not do is to guarantee basic drug coverage to everybody. Gore's doesn't quite achieve that either, but it comes a lot closer and does so without dismantling Medicare.

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